Forgotten
by Logray Vadisi
Summary: Shinji remembers that maybe his youth was not so lonely... dead.


Forgotten past

In the darkness of Unit-01's entry plug, all that could be heard was the beating of a heart and ragged breathing. Shinji looked up as a second heartbeat joined his. For a moment, he felt like he was incredibly safe and warm. In fact, he could not remember ever feeling like this before... After a few moments of this feeling, he noticed that something seemed to be wrong... or missing... Then all went black.

An indeterminate time later, Shinji returned to consciousness to find himself staring at a ceiling. 'Where... where am I? Oh, I've seen this ceiling before. Look, there's that same water spot on the ceiling tiles. Means I'm in the hospital again... At least they could put me in a different room...' As he was thinking this, he looked around the room, confirming 2 things. First, it was the same room he always woke up in, and second, that he was not alone. Misato was sitting in a chair near his bed, head tipped forward, and snoring lightly. 'Well, at least I'm not alone in being tired...' He barely managed to get these thoughts out before he drifted back into sleep.

As was often the case when Shinji had this dream, it started with his father telling him he was no longer wanted. As was also almost always the case, Chibi-Shinji just stood there crying as his father walked back to his car. But this time, something seemed different about the dream. As his father drove away, he could swear he saw a small head peek up over the back seat of the car, with eyes that were startlingly blue and as full of tears as he imagined his own to be. "Hi-chan..."

He was awakened from the dream by a quiet, familiar voice saying,"Wake up, Shinji-kun." When he opened his eyes, he saw that Misato was still asleep, and that there was no one in the room with him. 'That was... odd. Why was my dream different? Who was in the back of...'

He was brought out of his ruminations by a gentle coughing from Misato. When he looked over to her, he saw that she was now awake and smiling at him. "Welcome back, Shinji! Are you ready to go home?" Shinji's only answer was to nod. "Then don't just sit there like a lump on a log, lets go!" It was at this moment that Shinji noticed that he was naked under the blanket. He noticed this because his blanket and sheet had fallen a little lower than was safe for modesty's sake... In other words, Misato got a real good look at Little Shinji before Shinji managed to pull the blanket over himself. After a moment, Misato got the message. "I'll be taking care of your paperwork. I'll be back in a few minutes." With that, she took off out the door, looking for a doctor so she could get Shinji discharged. Shinji looked around and spotted his school uniform hanging on a hanger on the back of the door. After a moment, he was dressed and ready to go home.

Time passes, and Shinji goes back into his normal routine of school in the mornings, testing in the afternoons and housework most evenings. The only addition to this was that every night, he had the same dream that he had in the hospital, usually waking up after only a few hours of sleep spending the rest of the night wondering the same thing.'Why do I feel like I know this girl?' His lack of sleep was starting to show in both his synchro rating and his grades, as they quickly plummeted from B's to D's. Finally, 11 days after he awoke in the hospital, he was ordered to come to Fuyutsuki's office.

"Hello, Shinji. How are you today?"

"Fine, sir."

"That's good to hear. Shinji, I called you here today because recently your synchro rating with your Eva has dropped almost to the point where you can't pilot. Care to tell me why?"

At first, Shinji didn't want to answer, but then.. "I... I've been having... a dream. It keeps me up all night, and I haven't been able to sleep well because of it, sir."

"Can you tell me about this dream, Shinji?"

Shinji proceeds to tell Fuyutsuki about the dream, and when Shinji mentions the part about the little head in the back of the car, Fuyutsuki stops him. "Shinji, I think I can help you with this, but it has to stay between us." Fuyutsuki writes down an address and tells Shinji, "Go there, and ask for Mother Maeda. She can tell you what you need to know." With that, Fuyutsuki escorts Shinji to the door and tells him to enjoy his trip.


End file.
